Review: Siren’s Calling by Piper Drake

Reviewed by Debz

I didn’t think this through when I decided the start this series from a randomly placed novella. The premise of the book seemed interesting though. I’m a fan of mythologies and epic fantasies and I’m now basically an expert in all things faeries, vampires and werewolves so I thought I should check this one out.

This is a novella in the middle of a long-established series by different authors and for anyone wanting to read this book, I think it’s better to have a background of all the other novels before you start this one.

This novella follows Amae Waters, the banished daughter of the Sea God. She has been living in the human world (Seattle) and working to help preserve water life and sea creatures and preserving the eco system as a mermaid.

Although a consultant and paper pusher, she is called by a marine biologist team to help understand and study the death of a sea orca. This is very weird, in fact, because that is not her job. Her love for the sea coupled with the fact she was the first person to witness this death made her interested in the mission.

She then finds out that this meeting and assignment have been orchestrated by one Keegan Boots, biologist team member by day and selkie by night. He needs her help as one of the premier predators in the water to figure out what animal or monster or both is terrorizing the sea.

After clandestine missions by Amae and Keegan, they discover that the monster is a Leviathan sent by a reclusive species called ‘Deep dwellers’ who want to capture and take Amae’s powers.

Keegan is kidnapped by the Deep dwellers and it is up to Amae to save Keegan, satiate the leviathan and keep the seas in Puget Sound, Seattle, in balance.

The writer went into great details for this small novella and I think I might have appreciated the effort more if a huge fight scene or something relatively epic was happening. However, the level of detail was wasted in the fact that it was all about the eco system, fish swimming in different bodies of water, and biology. This feels like a niche work, and I don’t think I am the intended audience.

Also the main character, Amae, doesn’t seem invested in human interactions. I get that she is an alien, but she just seems very aloof. This also makes the romantic relationship budding between Keegan and Amae less plausible. Their interactions are short, mostly work related and there doesn’t seem to be any chemistry between them.

All in all, this novella feels like the beginning of an epic fantasy. On its own however, it falls short and leaves the reader (ME) with a lot to be desired.